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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25478866">Piece of Something</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/KinomiAkai/pseuds/KinomiAkai'>KinomiAkai</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ficlet, Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M, One Shot, Romance, Romantic Fluff, Short One Shot, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 12:34:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,710</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25478866</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/KinomiAkai/pseuds/KinomiAkai</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They don't talk about it. They feel it—together, that piece of something in the bond between them, but they don't talk about it. How could they? How do you acknowledge what you've both ignored? </p><p>SNS, canonverse, oneshot.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>460</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Piece of Something</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diesel2311/gifts">Diesel2311</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I wrote this as a little pick me up for Diesel! But I hadn't had the chance to post it yet, so in honour of Sasuke's birthday - here's a little ficlet. Diesel wanted "something with so much love it hurts" - I hope I hit the mark :) I'm posting this quickly as I'm super busy atm, but I wanted to put at least a little something out today! And Diesel gave me the go ahead, so thank them too!!!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was a cloudy day.</p><p>And clouded, cold kind of night. Sasuke sat in the clearing and let the feeling settle into him. He'd always found nights like this to...awaken him, somehow. Refresh him.</p><p>He'd never minded the cold.</p><p>Someone else did, though. He pressed back the smile that threatened to rise as Naruto huddled closer.</p><p>"We can find a village," he offered quietly, but Naruto—</p><p>"I'm fine!"</p><p>—was stubborn. Stubborn and stupid and always needing to prove that he was equal to Sasuke in each and every way. Anything Sasuke could do, he could too. Anything Sasuke could resist, Naruto could too. But the other way around?</p><p>Sasuke knew better than to fool himself.</p><p>(Naruto had yet to learn that lesson.)</p><p>"Hey," Naruto said, shoving his shoulder into Sasuke with a small laugh, "stop it. I can feel you making fun of me."</p><p>The smile fought harder, this time.</p><p>"Stop doing things I feel the need to mock, then," Sasuke muttered, and Naruto shoved their bodies together again.</p><p>"Asshole! How am I supposed to—"</p><p>He cut himself off, as if realizing what he'd begun to admit to. Or perhaps Sasuke's smile had told him exactly that…</p><p>"Shut up," Naruto said again, and it was mumbled. It was a resigned whine of a laugh, and all it really did was make the air around Sasuke feel...warmer. Hotter. Piercing, like something intense and powerful surrounded him—a delicate, imagined version of Naruto's chakra, cloaking his body—</p><p>Sasuke breathed out, and Naruto spared him a glance.</p><p>And there they were.</p><p>The small nerves—the ones that bubbled up in the back of his head, as if intentionally trying to hide which of them it came from. Maybe it was both. But it stemmed from the same...something that had been developing between them. That had developed—years ago, maybe, and maybe in both of them, in different ways—in odd ways, like pieces of a puzzle that had nothing to fit into until their minds had made it to one another. They were still feeling the edges out—and Sasuke found himself feeling, feeling, feeling, expecting some rough, calloused end, and finding—</p><p>Something soft. Smooth. Warm. Sasuke couldn't find where this love ended.</p><p>He flinched at the thought, twitching his eyes to Naruto as if he'd somehow been able to hear it. And he couldn't, he knew—their bond allowed feelings and memories and intense...visions, if anything, but they were always vague, always foggy, never concrete and never clear—</p><p>And that—that was a good thing. That was good, Sasuke thought, sitting up straighter, stiffer, uncomfortably—this was still new, and no matter how they'd both...quietly acknowledged it all, Sasuke didn't—</p><p>Sasuke didn't know what to do.</p><p>From here. Where did they go from here? If love—<em>somehow</em>, if love had managed to survive and grow in his heart this whole time—and if it was there, and if Naruto knew it was there, and if Naruto felt something—something similar, no matter how small, he—</p><p>Naruto's head fell onto his shoulder.</p><p>Sasuke stiffened. Naruto had been just as—as distant and awkward as he had, unwilling to touch or explore or move past any of the excuses they had to touch. Sparring, greeting, sitting side by side, standing far too close—Sasuke called the excuses what they were only in his head, and yet this didn't meet the standards for any of them—</p><p>"It's cold," Naruto said, as if that was a reasonable explanation.</p><p>"You're pathetic," he replied, and it sounded weak. It sounded whispered and awkward, and Sasuke immediately looked away. Their excuses were what kept them afloat. Kept them speaking. The silences would be suffocating without them. If Sasuke didn't play along—</p><p>"Guess I could get that blanket I brought, too," Naruto said, and Sasuke looked back.</p><p>His bag was beside him. Easily in his unbandaged arm's reach—</p><p>Naruto didn't move.</p><p>Sasuke breathed in, and didn't push him away.</p><p>"Been talking to Sakura," Naruto continued, doing something that felt like—like he was <em>nuzzling</em> in, but that—</p><p>"Oh?" Sasuke breathed out, his voice light, unburdened, lying—</p><p>"Yeah. 'Cause she's getting married soon, and all."</p><p>And all. Yes, Sasuke was familiar. Naruto had made sure that he was, with every intricate detail of the very intricate process. It was a nicer topic, true, than most of the other ones Naruto brought with him from Konoha, but it still sent Sasuke's mind spiraling—dipping down into that unique, world-shattering turmoil—</p><p>"Been talking to her about what it all...feels like. What you do. When you're that...close to someone."</p><p>Naruto's warmth felt ten times hotter.</p><p>"And?" he asked, thanking the miracle that let the word leave his throat—</p><p>"It's weird," Naruto answered. "S'like you just...exist better, when they're around. Like you always wanna be around them. Closer to them. Like feeling happier whenever they're around—or calmer, or more...at peace. Doing anything to get to that point, I guess. Someone who knows you and gets you and that's it. Likes every part of you. Someone who's seen every part of you. I…"</p><p>Naruto sat up, letting out a breath. Sasuke turned just in time to feel the distant wave of nerves echo through him, in time with the way Naruto shifted, his gaze flickering to Sasuke and then down again—but then…</p><p>The words fluttered through his mind with the wind.</p><p>Yes. They made sense. Of course they made sense. Sasuke felt his love every day. Every day they were together—every day they were apart. He'd felt it back then, too, but had spat it into the deepest recesses of his mind. Love hadn't been <em>allowed</em>. Friendship had been banished. If he'd let himself love Naruto than he'd never had been able to let him go, and Sasuke had had to, had to, <em>had to</em> let him go—</p><p>Sasuke closed his eyes.</p><p>Thank god he hadn't.</p><p>"Her words?" Sasuke asked, and the wave of nerves crashed into him again.</p><p>"Um," Naruto answered.</p><p>Sasuke breathed in, and opened his eyes to look out into the trees. It had grown darker, now. The stars didn't break through the cloudy sky, and the moon had barely managed it, too. It made for something solemn and...quiet—something broken only by the rustle of the leaves, or the slight shift of Naruto at his side—that perfect, booming presence, <em>god</em>, Sasuke craved the noise—</p><p>"And if you're there," Sasuke said, feeling the movement, "in that moment—with that person. What then?"</p><p>Naruto let out a nervous laugh, and Sasuke knew his hand was in his hair.</p><p>"I—I—I dunno. Hold hands or something, probably."</p><p>Hm. Sasuke looked down between them.</p><p>They'd have to switch sides.</p><p>Naruto let out another laugh, as if catching onto the thought. Sasuke met his eyes for a small, glimpse of a moment—seeing just a <em>touch</em> of that something he kept feeling, that something they kept feeling, that piece of something that hadn't made sense until they'd put it together—</p><p>"I don't know," Naruto said again, his eyebrows furrowed and his eyes confused. "I—I thought I would. I—"</p><p>Naruto caught himself in a breath, and Sasuke breathed in the confession he'd nearly heard. He breathed it in like air, as if he'd forgotten what breathing had felt like at all—the words whirled around his mind and he tried to catch them, rearrange them, piece together what Naruto had been going to say, was trying to say—his hope was here in his chest, in his throat, in his tongue, in his eyes, he—</p><p>"Um," Naruto said again, and Sasuke—</p><p>Sat up.</p><p>Turned around.</p><p>Naruto breathed in, and Sasuke reached out and grabbed his hand.</p><p>He didn't know what had done it. What had broken him. Maybe he'd been breaking ever since Naruto had laid at his side, bleeding from the opposite arm as him—maybe he'd been breaking since he'd looked up at Sasuke, for the first time in <em>years</em>, with a face filled with pain and betrayal and something that edged dangerously to hope—maybe he'd been breaking since Naruto cornered him on the edge of a cliff, begging for an answer, begging for his friendship, begging for him to understand what Naruto hadn't been able to put into words—</p><p>Maybe Naruto had always loved him.</p><p>Maybe Sasuke had always loved him, too.</p><p>Sasuke pulled his hand back, breathing out the hope in his lungs. He was used to ripping himself from Naruto. Used to denying himself this warmth, this comfort, this love—</p><p>"Oh," said Naruto, and Sasuke felt it in his heart.</p><p>"Oh?" he echoed back, grasping at the threads that their bond gave him. Just an answer, just an answer, all he wanted was a—</p><p>"Oh," Naruto said again. "Me too."</p><p>Sasuke's head snapped up. Naruto reached out, his brow still furrowed as he caught Sasuke's hand and pulled it back to him—his eyes still scattered and wide and blue and <em>beautiful</em>—Sasuke obeyed his touch and moved closer, closer, closer, closer, closer—</p><p>Their lips pressed together, and Sasuke fell into the kiss. Melted into it, tumbled into it—the relief beckoned the tension from his body and Naruto's lips did the rest, warm and perfect and <em>purposeful</em> as they were—Sasuke reeled at the touch and reeled at the feeling and <em>reeled</em> at the words—</p><p>He pulled back.</p><p>"If you knew," he said, gasping for air, "if you knew, this whole time, if you knew—"</p><p>"I didn't know!" Naruto insisted. "I don't know shit! I just know that I feel like—like this and that's <em>it</em>, how the fuck was I supposed to know what to do abou—"</p><p>Sasuke laughed.</p><p>He couldn't help it. He hid it in Naruto's warmth—pressing his forehead to Naruto's shoulder, like the weight of his emotion had pushed him so far down he needed someone to hold him up, someone who could hold him up, carry his weight, take Sasuke's pain as his own—</p><p>"I love you," Sasuke said, knowing it didn't need to be said and yet needing to say it anyway— "I love you. Naruto. I—"</p><p>"Yeah," Naruto said, laughing out his delight, "I love you too."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>That's it for now! I'm hotspotting on my phone and need to run :) It's a busy few days for me. Hope you all are well and as happy as you can be!</p><p>Until next time,</p><p>- Kinomi</p></blockquote></div></div>
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